The GQ&A: Pam Grier

Everything about Pam Grier is big. Big personality. Big stature. Big resumé. Big talent. Even her nose, which the journalist Mark Jacobson once called her "best feature, [which] juts away from her face defiantly—a warning, a dare" in his famous feature, "Sex Goddess of the Seventies." She has been a living icon for some time, ever since the writer-director Jack Hill discovered Grier and cast her in several films—first 1971’s The Big Doll House, and subsequent blaxploitation classics like _Coffy _and Foxy Brown.

In the intervening years, Grier maintained an aura of iconography, if not fame. Then in 1996, while deciding on a follow-up to his culture-cracking 1994 movie, Pulp Fiction, Quentin Tarantino cast Grier, then 47, in his adaptation of Elmore Leonard’s Rum Punch, which became the 1997 film Jackie Brown. Tarantino adored Grier, changing Jackie’s race to African-American to suit his star. The film, a surprise at the time in that it was a slightly moody noir caper flick about aging and imperfection, introduced Grier to a new generation of film fans, and reminded a legion that she was once the first black female action star. Nearly 15 years since it was filmed, we talked to the 62-year-old actress about the film on the occasion of its release on Blu-ray (along with Pulp Fiction.) Grier, working steadily for more than 40 years, was giddy recalling meeting Tarantino, her legacy as a performer, and the mystery of her chemistry with co-star Robert Forster.

GQ: What’s it like looking back on Jackie Brown, 15 years after you made it?

**Pam Grier: **Well, it’s Quentin Tarantino, and he made a remarkable, extraordinary film that has had legs—people are still seeing it today or revisiting it for the 5th or 6th time and seeing something different each time and are thoroughly enjoying it. The amount of fan mail I get from Greece and the Netherlands and China, and people stop me in the street and go, "Jackie Brown!" You know how all of Quentin’s being, all of his craft, every film and music score he studied as a young boy to where he is today, is reflected in that film.

GQ: When did you first meet him?

**Pam Grier: **I met him on the street, on Highland Avenue. If you go up to Sunset, there’s a theater on the corner. I was in traffic with a friend of mine, a filmmaker, named Warrington Hudlin, of the Hudlin brothers. We were sitting in a car, I was driving, and there was this man in shorts and a T-shirt talking to a beautiful woman on the side of the road in traffic and as we start scooting close toward the intersection, he sees my friend, who says, "Hey! Hey! Quentin! Come here!" And goes, "It’s Pam Grier!" And Quentin goes, "Pam Grier! I’m writing a screenplay for you!" I go, "Yeah, right." I thought, this is Quentin Tarantino saying it out on the street... I think he was barefoot, he didn’t have on sandals or flip flops. I’m going, _Really? Pulp Fiction? This is him? Okay... He’s had a bad night, obviously. _He said, "No, I’m writing a script and I just love you!" And he’s raving on and on, and I said, "My God, it’d be fantastic if you send it to me, I’d love to see it." You know, Quentin Tarantino, he’s such an artist. And six months later, the script shows up at my apartment in New York, with 44 cents due. I keep getting these stickers from the post office saying they’ve got an envelope from L.A. with 44 cents due. I thought it must be someone selling mattresses or something, I don’t know, so I tape the money to one of the notices and they leave the envelope with the script in it, and I open it up and there is Jackie Brown based on the novel by Elmore Leonard, written by Quentin Tarantino. And... the Earth stood still. Time stopped. I just stood there. He did it. He’s invested this much time out of his life to write this and I read the note, and he said, "Read it and call me and tell me what you think." Well, that was three weeks ago. I sit down and read it, and go, "I’m probably going to play Bridget Fonda, Ordell Robbie’s girlfriend,"—she’s a black chick who’s a sexy hot drug dealer, and I go, "Oh, I can play that because I did Fort Apache, The Bronx and I got a lot of offers because I did it so well." I said, "Oh, he’s funny!" I totally didn’t even think about Jackie Brown, that role, because it was the lead. I’ll probably get third or fourth or fifth lead or something like that. I called him and he asked what I thought, and I said, "It’s really extraordinary, it’s just amazing, I love the plot, your turning points of course! It’s you!" And he said, "Do you like the role? I thought you didn’t like it and that’s why you didn’t call." I said, "No, I just got it. There were 44 cents due." And on the envelope, there are stamps all over the corner where he licked it himself, thinking it was enough! So I said, "Which role am I gonna play?" And you can hear the silence over the phone. Then, "Jackie Brown." I’m thinking, "Naw, really?" and I can hear him thinking, Oh, she’s dumb. She’s dense. I just could not realize that someone had written such a strong lead role for me and if I didn’t do it, he would do something else. I was just honored and humbled and, it doesn’t happen to you every day. Maybe to Meryl Streep. But it was just wonderful. When the envelope came, I thought, How is he gonna get enough financing? He didn’t have enough money for stamps? Now it’s going to be on Blu-ray. So, you think they’re going to do Jackie Brown like they did Catwoman, three times? With Zoe Saldana? [laughs] Or Willow Smith? [laughs]

Advertisement

GQ: That could certainly happen, but I hope it doesn’t. Where were you in your career when Quentin approached you?

**Pam Grier: **I was focusing on my craft as an actor. There’s one thing that helps you define yourself and evolve, and that’s doing theatre. For four years, that’s all I wanted to do: Sam Shepard, August Wilson. When I saw Denzel Washington and Larry Riley, it was in A Soldier’s Play, which became A Soldier’s Story in the film, and Roger Robinson, who I worked with on Piano Lesson, the August Wilson play, he said, "Pam, you’re really good but when you do the boards, it’s nothing like you’ve experienced. You become something else. You find out if you’re great or not. You get to explore. You’re not shooting out of sequence, you’re working in sequence." I just watched him, I was mesmerized. That’s all I wanted to do. I just wanted to do plays, theater. I just wanted to feel that sensation of being in the moment, it’s so rich. When I did Fool for Love at the LAPC, the Sam Shepard play, it’s 90 minutes and no intermission. If you’re riding the Tour de France, running cross-country, that’s what it is. It’s 90 minutes and no intermission and I lost 3-4 pounds every night and I loved it. We were sold out for nine months. Then I did _Frankie and Johnny in Clair de Lune _where you’re nude on stage, in a blanket, at the beginning of the play. To be nude, under the sheets, in the dark, making love to your actor in front of 500 people, it’ll make you or break you. My understudy couldn’t do it when I had the flu, she couldn’t do it. After doing the boards, I think Quentin realized that I could play Jackie Brown in his way. And, literally, when you work with him, he liberates you. You’re not in a contrived, controlled environment. You’re liberated because he’s that way when he works. He wants you to know your lines, so when he changes something or rewrites in front of you, you’re equipped to adapt and be there with him. Your heart is beating as he does it. It’s a spectacular experience.

GQ: When he first asked you to come on board, were you aware of the impact it would have on your career?

**Pam Grier: **No. I think we all do our work and what comes is the reward. Projecting something, that’s unrealistic, like projecting the stock market. You buy stock and the IPO is gonna do this or that, you don’t know that! You sell high, buy low. You just don’t know. It’s not a given. Actually thinking, Well, we just do our best work, we’ll be surprised—that’s the greatest reward: the wonderful reception so many years later from people who have seen it so many times. You know when I give it to 10 people, there’s 10 different perspectives. And to hear them all! It’s just remarkable. And to be a part of it is great. I have peace now! I have peace in the valley because of it! I know that as I direct a film that I’ve written and I start doing that, if I could have half the feeling of liberation, allowing the actors to go away and come back, take us somewhere, invent something, tell us a story, we want to see the color of your blood, if I could have a fraction of his curiosity and his talent, something comparable, I’ll be happy.

Advertisement

GQ: Before you made the film, what was your feeling about the work you’d done in the ’70s? Were you proud of films like Coffy and Foxy Brown?

**Pam Grier: **Very proud. It was the time of the woman’s movement, and in order to sell women’s equality—not domination, we’re not trying to castrate anyone or take away a man’s job—just be recognized as equal. And that oppression has ended. We’re now driving and we can vote and our grandmothers and mothers didn’t get a fraction of the opportunities women have today. All we wanted to do was have fun and entertainment and ease that message in underneath like a prompt so it doesn’t hit men over the head and scare ’em, but to show that this is what’s coming! This is why you see these fabulous shows, like 2 Broke Girls, and they say they’re giving it to you like men do! No, they’re giving it to you like women can and _should _have and are doing. It has nothing to do with men. And the equation that women are being just as feisty and quirky and sexy as I was in Coffy. I was doing it then! People called it tongue-in-cheek. Sometimes I feel like I was ahead.

**GQ: I’m curious about your chemistry with Robert Forster. It’s still palpable. **

**Pam Grier: **No we didn’t have _sex, _Sean! I know what you’re getting around to! Everyone’s falling in love with their leading men in their movies! I won’t mention names, but he has relationships with everyone he’s in a movie with, and vice versa! But no, I had never met with Robert Forster. I love that last scene with Jackie where she’s being romantic, and she’s trying to let him know he was her Prince Charming and that he took care of her, and it scared him [laughs]. He couldn’t go, he says, "I really want to, but I’m afraid. I’ll never recover from this. I’ll be doing dishes and her laundry for the rest of my life." He thought about it, but that’s how Quentin wrote this incredible scene and how Quentin explains it, and it’s truly amazing how he explains it. He said, "You guys have rehearsed it and you’re comfortable with each other. Be free. You can feel the tension." When he says, "Free," it’s okay, the walls come down. It’s okay to touch, and to have a moment. Quentin allows you to have that moment. Robert looks like, I went to see him a few minutes ago and we haven’t seen each other in a long time, but to see him and just hug him, I go, "God, is this country making me bigger and taller?" I’m overpowering him and he is shrinking, but Pam, you also loaded up three tons of hay and two cords of wood yesterday. Maybe you’re still pumped up. But he just was so caring and strong in that silent, Gary Cooper-ish way, that Brad Pitt-Matt Damon-Ben Affleck way, they’re quietly strong. He had that. It was a wonderful moment.

GQ: Some criticized the movie for the language Quentin uses in the screenplay, particularly his use of the N-word. Was that something you thought about?

**Pam Grier: **No, because I know the actor who spoke the words had additional words for his own improvisation. It might have been five for Quentin and 30 for the actor. That is unfair. How do people judge art? It wasn’t a political statement, but it was art. He has the right to write it, produce it, and direct it. The actor fought back and said, "I said it!" and that’s Sam Jackson! Who’s gonna argue with him? His work is brilliant. And he made the right choices. But you’ll have that from an audience. And now, everyone who asked or displayed something they felt, like discomfort or dismay or disgruntled, or whatever. Look at that person and see where he comes from. How they receive art, or a line from Shakespeare, or a quote: ten different perspectives. I dated Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and I was converting to Islam, and yes, Islam is monolithic, however there are fundamentalists, moderates, conservatives, and the very free. Same way with the African-American community. They go to see Quentin Tarantino-Pam Grier, the fundamentals will think one thing, the liberals something else. But for them to get publicity for it, for me, it’s like, well... this is art. Gauguin. Too many brushstrokes. Okay, Picasso went through the Cubist period. Why Cubist? A woman! Her breasts are cubes. People thought it was hideous. It’s genius. And it’s art. And you know how art is. It’s subjective.

Advertisement

GQ: What’s the legacy of the movie for you? Where does it stand in your career?

**Pam Grier: **It encompasses so much. It’s like watching a 3-D puzzle in your brain. The legacy is that Quentin went back and captured himself, how he grew up, his music, style, artistry, and craft, and brings out all these other craftsmen who resonate to him and he liberates us all to have this wonderful time that I’ll never forget. I don’t know what other people think, but for me, for someone to invest two years of their life, to write something... for me. It’s awesome. I can’t measure. I can’t say. It’s really personal.

GQ: Would you say it changed your career?

**Pam Grier: **I can’t say that. It probably got me noticed. Doing theater for four years before I met him, he probably thought doing theater gave me the craft he could work with. We would have to ask him. But literally a lot of people get to see your work, you’re as good as your last job. I’m still getting offers, 40 years later. Let’s see who has a forty-year career. Me and Betty White. The legacy is not just me, it’s all of us and our love for film, whether it’s Bertolucci or Fellini or Roger Corman, or whomever we love, we become those certain things. It’s very complex. It’s not even a log-line. It’s not even a sentence. Hey, it’s Blu-ray! But it’s more than that. It’s complex. It’s lovely.

Since 1957, GQ has inspired men to look sharper and live smarter with its unparalleled coverage of style, culture, and beyond. From award-winning writing and photography to binge-ready videos to electric live events, GQ meets millions of modern men where they live, creating the moments that create conversations.